What’s most striking about Fires in Distant Buildingsis the interplay between the album’s themes and its sound on thesurface. The melodies are pretty and the vocals are light and airyand full of harmonies that would make a pop producer proud. The lyrics,on the other hand, cut any pleasant warm fuzzies with a sharp, serratedknife and then hide the body parts under the house.
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Ex-Jessamine member and Sunn 0))) contributor Dawn Smithson seems happily married to the autumnal nuance of desolation. Despite the title, Smithson's writing is dangerous, capable of unfolding and making the most resolute optimist feel wholly crazed and alone.
Although this is the debut full-length release from The Juan MacLean,John MacLean is no newbie to recording, performing, or the musicbusiness and all the drugs, partying, and fun that go along with theterritory. It's easy to see how the Juan MacLean has made anexcellent party record.
Although Phil Knight's intermittant solo albums are much less structured and moreorganic than the work he does with the Legendary Pink Dots, they might answersome questions about his work. 
After some disappointing live albums Earth returns with an album to quash all doubts as to who is king of the extended riff. However, instead of trying to out-drone the youngsters trying to recreate Earth2 Dylan Carlson has steered his guitar playing away from fuzzed out extended chords to a pared-down country picking.
The Campfire Headphase sees the Boards of Canada returning to the long, spacious melodies and funky but not too-heavy rhythm work of Music Has the Right to Children, but with enough of an update to make the album not only welcome, but essential.
Although the new DVD from Tino Corp. bills itself as a "State of the art
audio visual surround sound experience," the videos that make up the
meat of the presentation are often far from bleeding edge. The
collection of video clips, live footage, and a few assorted visual
goodies is a fun trip down Tino Memory Lane, and has enough features
and curios to keep avid fans of the cult of Jack Dangers and Ben Stokes
happy. But taken with a broader perspective, Tino
Vision falls considerably short of the high water marks for
music video collection DVDs.
On the latest two track release as Cathode, Steve Jefferis explores vocals and tries topack as big an electronic journey as possible into the four minutelistening experience as gently as he can. Whichever way thesongs seem to twist Cathode keeps melody at the heart of the music.
I have largely looked with unenthuseddisgust at the so-called "folktronica" sound that has played out inrecent years. Growing up with my parents' Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, andWoody Guthrie records provided me with an appreciation for real mastersof the craft, and, comparatively, some moody dipshit's grandiose laptopmeets guitar experiments hardly garners my respect. The only possiblething worse than the typical album in this half-assed subgenre wouldhave to be one that also incorporates that desperately pretty latenineties IDM sound. Sadly, that's just where Gonglot fits in.
